Francis Preston Blair

Francis Preston Blair (12 April 1791-18 October 1876) was a co-founder of the Republican Party and a member of its conservative wing. Blair, who opposed radical Reconstruction in the aftermath of the American Civil War, later rejoined the Democratic Party due to his opposition to the party's classical liberal course.

Biography
Francis Preston Blair was born in Abingdon, Virginia in 1791, and he was raised in Frankfort, Kentucky, where he became a journalist. He was an early member of the Democratic Party and a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson, having helped him to win his state in the 1828 presidential election. From 1831 to 1845, he worked as editor-in-chief of the Washington Globe, the primary propaganda instrument for the Democratic Party, and was largely successful; he also became an influential advisor to Jackson as a part of his "Kitchen Cabinet". Despite being a slaveholder himself, he came to oppose the expansion of slavery in the west, and he supported the Free Soil Party in the 1848 election. In 1854, in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he left the Democratic Party and helped to establish the Republican Party, hoping to create a conservative, anti-slavery party. He served as an advisor to Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, and, in 1861, he was sent on a failed mission to convince Robert E. Lee to command Union forces against the Confederacy. In 1865, he helped to organize the Hampton Roads Conference, a failed peace meeting. After the Union victory, he became disillusioned with Reconstruction and eventually rejoined the Democrats. His son Francis Preston Blair Jr. was the party's vice-presidential nominee in 1868, and Blair died in 1876 at the age of 85.